Hollywood has always loved sequels, and judging by the box office, viewers have too
Memorial Day weekend once marked the start of the summer movie season, although, like baseball, the industry continues to lengthen its schedule. The record opening for Marvel’s Avengers brought to Hollywood a palpable sense of relief that even a Battleship the opening could not be lessened. The Avengers did remarkably well, as did films in general this year. A le journal Wall Street A report released Monday said box office revenues were up 15.7% from last year, and if the trend continues, films could gross nearly $5 billion this summer.
With the opening Friday of Men in black 3Blockbuster season is officially here. Snow White and the Hunter opens June 1; Prometheus et Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most WantedJune 8; BraveJune 22; G.I. Joe: RetaliationJune 29; The Amazing Spider-ManJuly 6; The Ice Age: Continental Drift, July 13; and the 800 pound gorilla of summer, The Black Knight Riseson July 20.
Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones star in Men in Black 3. Photo: Wilson Webb. © 2012 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. All rights reserved.
Notice anything unusual in the schedule? That’s true, apart from Pixar’s Braveeach title is a sequel, a reboot or, in the case of Ridley Scott Prometheus, an unofficial prequel. Even The Avengers can be seen as a sort of sequel to Marvel features like Iron Man et Thor. Add some August remakes and updates like Bourne’s Legacy, The Expendables 2, Sparkled, The Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Heatwaveet Rappel totaland it seems Hollywood has turned its back on the original projects.
A look at the ten highest-grossing films of all time will show you why:
1. Avatar
2. Titanic
3. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
4. Marvel’s Avengers
5. Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon
6. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
7. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
8. Toy Story 3
9. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Fountain of Youth
dix. Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace
According to Box Office Mojo’s global grossing list, only two of these top ten films…Avatar et Titanic-are standalone titles and are not part of a series. And six of the remaining eight titles were adapted from another medium: books, comics, toys and rides.
A reason to be alarmed? Or just continue as if nothing had happened? Take the five highest-grossing films of the 1990s. Three of them-Terminateur 2, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York et Batman returns– were sequels, and a fourth was adapted from the bestselling novel jurassic park. (The fifth was the original Alone at home.) And the 1970s? Jaws, The Exorcist et The Godfather were all bestselling books; Fat was a successful play; and all of them spawned at least one sequel. 1977s Star Wars has become its own media empire.
Director Barry Sonnenfeld, Josh Brolin and Will Smith on the set of Men in Black 3. Photo: Wilson Webb. © 2012 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. All rights reserved.
The truth is that Hollywood’s biggest hits have almost always been based on well-known properties: Gone with the wind, The sound of music, The ten Commandments, Ben How, etc. In a way, filmmakers follow sound business principles by working from material that has already been successful in the market, with a pre-existing audience. Today, no studio executive wants to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in a project without notoriety, without a built-in audience and without a means of cross-promotion.
Filmmakers knew the value of adaptations and tie-ins from the start. Take The kiss from 1896, based on a scene from the play The Widow Jones. When it opened, an enterprising patron could see the film, attend the play, and learn more about both in the Sunday World all in the same day.
Artists have always faced the dilemma of telling something new while making it seem familiar. Painters like Dürer and Rembrandt revisited the same subjects throughout their careers. Shakespeare wrote sequels and, under royal pressure, brought characters like Falstaff back to the stage. The Merry Wives of Windsor. By public demand, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote more than fifty short stories and four novels about Sherlock Holmes, even after killing the detective in 1893. Jimmie Rodgers’ recording of “Blue Yodel” in 1927 was so popular that he made twelve more. versions, up to “Jimmie Rodgers’ Last Blue Yodel” of 1933.
In movie serials and comic books, which matured around the same time, artists perfected the trick of telling a story in which things kept happening but nothing ever changed. Viewers returned to episodes of The perils of Pauline et Flash Gordon because they could feel that no matter how bad things got, Pauline and Flash would somehow survive. The same is true today in television series like “CSI” and “Law and Order” and even “The Big Bang Theory.” Week after week, viewers return to see the characters they love doing much of the same thing, just differently. Gradual change is good. Characters can fall in and out of love, and when agents insist and deals fall through, they can even be killed off, reassigned, or moved to their own series. In The thin man films, the characters played by William Powell and Myrna Loy eventually transitioned from newlyweds to parents. But too much change and audiences will turn away, as Sylvester Stallone discovered when he ditched Rocky and Rambo for Rhinestones et Stop! or my mother will shoot.
Barry Sonnenfeld and Tommy Lee Jones on the set of Men in Black 3. Photo: Wilson Webb. © 2012 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. All rights reserved.
But it is still not easy to sell the public a story that they already know, which allows for achievements like Aliens or The Godfather Part 2 it is all the more remarkable. In his first sequel to Men in blackdirector Barry Sonnenfeld managed to give the plot enough twists and variations to win back moviegoers who enjoyed the original. But we had the feeling that the characters were biding their time, that the jokes seemed forced.
Men in black 3 It’s perhaps Sonnenfeld’s smartest work to date: it not only tells the same story as the previous films, it expands on them, revealing just enough about Agents J and K’s backgrounds to add a real emotional weight to their characters. While delivering the monsters, jokes, action, secondary characters and narrative twists viewers expect. And while adding a sad and melancholy tone which, once the ending is revealed, takes on its full meaning.
It’s an accomplished balancing act, one that I hope doesn’t get lost among the more obvious and less nuanced blockbusters surrounding it.
Read new posts from Reel Culture every Wednesday and Friday. And you can follow me on Twitter @Film_Legacy.
2023-10-15 01:40:15
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